“The Palestinian struggle for
self-determination has become the great international moral issue of our time,”
the international law expert Richard
Falk declares in his latest book, Palestine: The
Legitimacy of Hope (Just World Books).

Falk calls it “the last major anticolonial struggle.”

In this wide-ranging book, the
professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University embraces the boycott,
divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, advocates abandoning
the two-state solution and argues that the
best way of understanding Israel is as a settler-colonial state.

He notes that the importance of BDS lies in the fact that it is
Palestinian-led and that Israel has “no intention of allowing a viable
Palestinian state to be established.”

He also introduces a new lexicon to avoid the obscurantism that
language can often lend itself to. Occupation, he argues, should be called what
it is — annexation.

Israel’s “democracy” is in
reality an ethnocracy, human rights “violations” are better described as
crimes, home demolitions represent ethnic cleansing and Israeli military
doctrine is a form of state terrorism.

Falk writes that he is not yet
ready to use the word “genocide” to characterize Israel’s behavior
but “genocidal” is implicit in where its policies seem to be heading.

Falk recently completed a
six-year stint as the United Nations’ special rapporteur on theWest
Bank and Gaza. A rapporteur, derived from
the French, is an investigator assigned to a deliberative body, in this case
the UN Human Rights Council, to which Falk reported from March 2008 to March
2014.

Nearly all of Palestine:
The Legitimacy of Hope is based on articles that Falk wrote while he
was special rapporteur.

The book is divided into seven
chapters, each with an original introduction that provides a framework for what
follows. The seven chapters range in topic from peace negotiations to hunger strikes by Palestinian prisoners and the massacres in Gaza to
the role of international law and global solidarity movements.

Astute

In these writings, Falk demonstrates that he is more than just
an expert on international human rights. He is also an astute political
observer and a compassionate and compelling moral voice.

The central theme of the book is that Palestinians are waging — and
winning — a struggle for their legitimate right to self-determination. It is,
in effect, a “soft power” struggle of global public opinion and Palestinian
resistance, both violent and nonviolent, against the “hard power” of Israeli
military superiority backed by the economic, political, military and diplomatic
support of the world’s lone superpower, the United States.

Falk weighs in on the role of the global Palestine solidarity
movement in support of this struggle. In a striking example of humility, he apologies
for coming across as “unwittingly paternalistic” by appearing to approve a
Palestinian shift toward nonviolent resistance strategies. “No outsider,” he
writes, “has the moral authority or political legitimacy to tell those enduring
severe oppression how to behave.”

Elsewhere, he elaborates: “It seems important to understand,
especially for non-Palestinians, that it is the Palestinians who should retain
control over the discourse on their struggle, vision and strategy. It is up to
the rest of us … that we not encroach on this political space and appreciate
that our role is secondary.”

Falk underscores that the
military methods used by Hamas and its allies should be “viewed in
the context of the internationally recognized right of peoples to use all
necessary means to resist foreign military occupation … unlawful blockade, collective punishment and [the] regime of
state terror” imposed by Israel.

At the same time, he is unequivocal about condemning violence
directed at civilians and says militants waging armed struggle must also
respect the norms of international law, even when Israeli violence is often
purposely meant to provoke a violent Palestinian response.

Passionate

Falk is at his most passionate
when he writes about the Palestinian prisoner hunger strikers. He excoriates
the liberal New York Times columnists Nicholas Kristof andThomas Friedman for relentlessly calling
for a “Palestinian Gandhi.”

Yet when Palestinians held under
Israel’s system of administrative detention — a misnomer for
imprisonment without trial or charges — went on hunger strike to protest this
absence of due process and brutal prison conditions, those same liberal voices
said nothing.

The fact that many of the hunger
strikers belonged to Islamic Jihad undoubtedly played a role in this
silence, Falk notes.

Even though a hunger strike is
quintessentially nonviolent, demanding, as Falk writes, “the finest qualities
that human beings can ever hope to achieve,” neither The New York Times nor
other outlets of Western liberal media acknowledged that their long-sought
Gandhian moment had arrived.

It is also refreshing to see that Falk is not utopian or
idealistic about the role of international law. He readily acknowledges that
geopolitical interests take precedence.

Despite the fact that Palestinians have international law on
their side, they have nevertheless steadily lost ground to Israel’s brand of
settler colonialism and the US role of neo-colonial supporter.

Yet Falk approaches the issue
dialectically, showing that invoking international law is nevertheless a vital
part of the Palestinians’ struggle and — along with BDS — can help bring about
the same type of pressure that ended white minority rule in South
Africa.

Like all books that rely on
newspaper articles or blog posts for the bulk of their content,Palestine:
The Legitimacy of Hope is very much in the moment, caught up in the
particular event that inspired that day’s or that week’s commentary.

When transformed into a book, the perspective of time is
sometimes lacking, including the historical background that would identify
patterns and lend even more weight to the arguments being made.

Despite this minor caveat, the importance of this book is that
it does, indeed, legitimize hope.

Rod Such is a former editor for
World Book and Encarta encyclopedias. He is active with Americans United for
Palestinian Human Rights, Jewish Voice for Peace-Portland Chapter and the
Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign.

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